Kenai Peninsula residents must have the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights without restrictions from government. I’ve co-sponsored Senate Bill 63, which would prohibit state and local government from infringing upon Alaskan citizen's right to keep and bear arms through an emergency declaration. 

 

 

Alaska’s natural resources are the foundation of our state’s economy and help pay for the services of our state government. It was concerning to hear from representatives of our miners and oil and gas producers, and other resource industry representatives that they are struggling to get the skilled workers necessary to help bring Alaska’s natural resources to market. We must increase the access to vocational education to help get Alaskans to work and support these key industries.

 

 

The University of Alaska is expanding the number of seats in the School of Nursing and has enrolled 86 students in the new Early Education program. The hard part is getting nursing instructors to teach the courses because compensation for educators is not competitive with other work in the field. We must prioritize nursing instructors so that we can train more nurses to serve Alaskans.

 

 

We must prioritize education, attract new families and grow our state’s future skilled workforce and productive citizens by investing in our public schools. Alaska’s children are 20 percent of our population, but 100 percent of our future, and they deserve the best schools we can give them. I co-wrote an op-ed on this subject with fellow educators Rep. Maxine Dibert and Rep. Rebecca Himschoot.

 

 

One of my goals when I came to Juneau was to help address the high cost of healthcare. The 80th percentile rule sets a floor on the amount that health insurers must pay to out-of-network providers. The rule was intended to protect Alaska patients from surprise billing but has instead caused health care costs to go up. The Alaska Division of Insurance is proposing to repeal this regulation and is seeking public comment.